A WOMAN who plunged her mother's kitchen knife into the back of a total stranger has been jailed for five years.

The three-and-a-half inch blade narrowly missed Steven Weldon's spinal cord and right lung, Bournemouth Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

Leanne Richards, 21, from Amethyst Road, Christchurch admitted wounding the 45-year-old with intent in Boscombe shopping precinct.

Prosecutor Paul Hester recalled how Mr Weldon had left home in the early hours of March 29 this year "to get some fresh air" when Richards approached him.

"She sat down beside him and they both rolled cigarettes. There was a conversation lasting about ten minutes before she left," he said.

"About 30 seconds later he felt a thud to his back - almost like a punch. He could feel something sticking out and realised he had been stabbed."

A customer in a nearby kebab shop raised the alarm while his girlfriend, a nurse, tended to Mr Weldon.

Mr Hester said: "Mr Weldon took a stoical view of the whole incident. When he was taken into the operating theatre the knife was removed.

"It had left a seven centimetre deep wound close to his spine. Mercifully there wasn't internal bleeding."

The court heard how Richards had made a 999 call after the incident. When arrested nearby she said: "It was me. I did it."

Mr Hester added: "She said she had gone out to stab someone because she had urges to do that. She said she had given no thought as to whether Mr Weldon would live or die."

Defending, Luke Blackburn said Richards had led "an enormously troubled life" and been sexually abused by two strangers.

"She has trouble coming to terms with the young woman she has become. Very often the only person who has suffered at her hands is this young woman herself. She now realises she needs all the help available to her."

Sentencing Richards, Judge Samuel Wiggs said: "It is quite obvious that if it was not for your medical and mental difficulties you would not have committed this dreadful offence."

He jailed Richards for five years and made her the subject of an extended five-year licence.

Investigating officer DC Neil Phillips said: "It was a very random attack. The knife could easily have penetrated one of Mr Weldon's vital organs.

"What probably went in his favour was that he had at least three layers of clothes on.

"Doctors who treated him said he was very, very lucky."

First published: Oct 13